August 28, 2006

Anti-GM gloaters

It never fails to amaze me how much the anti-Genetic Modification (GM) crowd love to gloat at any problems (real or perceived) with GM crops. Reader Paul sent me a link to this Science Blogs Effect Measure article claiming GM cotton resistant to bollworm planted in China, is proving to be “a curse”, since other pests have grown stronger:

Genetically modified cotton resistant to bollworm is a reality and five million Chinese cotton farmers have embraced it. It works, too, killing bollworm larvae that used to kill their cotton. IN the late 1990s it looked like a miracle. Pesticide use was cut by 70%. After seven years, though, the miracle is looking more like a curse because new pests called mirids have rushed into the pest vacuum and taken up shop.

So, this must be a reason to ban all GM crops, right? That’s the obvious conclusion: any problem - ban it all. (It’s what Greenpeace wants.) Well, first perhaps we should look a little closer at what is actually happening. From China Economic Net (all quotes with my bold):

CCAP director Huang Jikun said the Cornell team's conclusions could be based on an incorrect reading of the data.

According to Huang, 2004 had particularly low summer temperatures and more precipitation, so the mirids affected not only cotton but also other conventional crops nearby.

CCAP interviews with the same farmers in 2005 and 2006 showed fewer mirids.

So perhaps things weren’t quite the “curse” they seemed? Still, I agree the growth of a different pest is a concern. So ban them then. End the experiment! Yes? Or perhaps a more scientific idea would be to manage them better. From CheckBiotech.org

Zhang Yongjun, a senior research fellow at the Institute of Plant Protection of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said the rise of the secondary insect problem was mainly due to the poor management of GM cotton growth in China.

Before planting anti-insect cotton, Chinese farmers widely used broad-spectrum pesticides, which killed both bollworms and mirids. But using the pesticides increased costs, caused pollution and harmed farmers’ health.

After planting anti-insect cotton, however, farmers use pesticides only in the final stage of the crop’s growth, when the Bt cotton’s resistance against bollworms is relatively reduced. “But in terms of preventing mirids, it’s too late,” said Zhang.

That situation, coupled with weather factors, eventually led to the outbreak of mirids across cotton-growing provinces in 2004, Zhang explained.

If the proper pesticide had been used at the right time, the mirids could have been controlled in 2004, he said.

When U.S. farmers plant Bt crops, they, unlike farmers in China, are required by contracts with seed producers to plant a refuge, a field of non-Bt crops, to maintain a bollworm population nearby to help prevent the pest from developing resistance to the Bt cotton. The pesticides used in these refuge fields help control secondary pest populations on the nearby Bt cotton fields.

GM crops are not perfect, but then no solution is without costs. For example, before GM cotton was introduced, 400 to 500 Chinese cotton farmers used to die every year from pesticide poisoning. Ban GMOs and you have to consider these costs (and others) that would increase. A better solution would seem to be learn from these developing problems and manage them better. As the Cornell article puts it:

"Research is urgently needed to develop and test solutions."

These include introducing natural predators to kill the secondary pests, developing Bt cotton that resists the secondary pests or enforcing the planting of refuge areas where broad-spectrum pesticides are used.

Of course science doesn’t always get it 100% right first time but that doesn’t mean you abandon a project at the first sign of a problem. And that’s especially true when there are potentially huge benefits to be gained. I realize Greenpeace and the like aren’t interested in scientific explanations and solutions, but I wouldn’t expect a real scientist to dismiss a whole field of science just because something didn’t work out perfectly first time. Which is why I am surprised and disappointed this supposed “Science Blogger” ends his article with the tart:

Maybe this is why the tag line of Pete Seeger's anti-war song, "Where have all the Flowers gone?" is "When will they ever learn?"

When will they ever learn? They? If he’s referring to the anti-GM gloaters, it seems only after “a long time passing”. When will they ever learn indeed.

Comments

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You correctly infer the post was not favorable to GM crops as a solution, although not for anti-science reasons. The concern over GM crops, as you obviously know but don't address, involves (among other things) concerns over monoculture and the concern that introducing alien species (which is potentially what a GM crop is) will have irreversible effects, etc. That's the down side. We addressed the supposed up side, which wasn't very far up. It stopped working, at least according to the Cornell scientists. If you believe the notorious Chinese Ministry of Agriculture to the contrary, then I have a used car for you and a bridge in Brooklyn for lease.

The Chinese government is particularly reckless when it comes to the environment as are agribusiness concerns that promote GM seedstocks. We have no objection to well controlled scientific experiments but have genuine concern about uncontrolled uses of agents, whether GM crops or pesticides, on a mass basis without proper understanding of the effects, promoted by interests whose concern for public health and the environment are very low on their list.

In the case of the post you cite, our use of the Seeger tag line referred to fixing a technical "problem' with another technical fix. Our experience with this tactic should be sufficient to make one extremely wary. But it obviously isn't.

It's interesting that GM cotton has been grown extensively for over a decade and people still insist on making wild claims about it. Like, for instance, that it must be bad because the Chinese government is bad. The farmers like it, and they're better at deciding what works than anyone else. After all, they make the planting decisions.

I dispair. Here in France people tear up GM crops that are been grown for test purposes. They go into the fields en-masse, with lots of publicity. The police are there and theylook on and they make no arrests. Jose Bove is seen as a hero and is going into politics.
I'm afraid it is going to be down to China and other far east countries to push the R&D on GM biology. And we'll end up going cap in hand to them for solutions.

It really seems like some people just aren't very bright. The choice is simple GMO's or pesticides and fertilizers made with the same carbon dioxide we're trying to get out of the air.

It is becoming more and more common for someone to critisize with little or no knowledge of what they're talking about.

I live in the US and we use GMO's here and have been for awhile. Our birds aren't falling out of the sky, our fish aren't going belly up and people aren't coming down with untreatable diseases from some unknown or unforseen pathogen. I think this situation would be best handled by a mass marketing campagin to educate the world about GMO's. Probably nearly ever one has already ate, used clothes or breathed some plant that was used for Bio Diesel at some point.

Oh I'm sure there are some who may say not me and roll on the floor yelling and screaming they haven't. Of course they never ate meat, poultry of fish and corn, soy and a host of other products never crossed there lips. Perhaps they just don't read about the preservatives in cans, GMO's are here and they have enhanced our lives.